


Tears or Deduction

by beltainefaerie



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, BBC Sherlock - Freeform, Gen, Graphic Description, Post Reichenbach, References to Suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-04
Updated: 2013-07-23
Packaged: 2017-12-10 08:41:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/784083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beltainefaerie/pseuds/beltainefaerie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John tries to cope in the aftermath of the Fall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Triage

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first multi-chapter work that I've ever posted. Thanks to the delightful Nikki for Beta reading. 
> 
> Some of the warnings will apply more in future chapters, but I would rather warn people.
> 
> Warnings: depictions of graphic violence, suicide, depression, surgery, autopsy

 

There were days it felt like a lifetime ago and others when it could not have been more than a week, two at the very outmost. Three months. That was the accurate account according to the calendar, which had no business lying. The military training made it easy to push away in the day. Life as triage.  No matter what tragedy you witnessed, no matter how close you were to those gunned down, there was still a job to do. There were others you _could_ save, so you moved along. Square shoulders, chin up. You don’t just patch together someone who fell four stories off a building.  Mind shifted into crisis mode. Heal what you can, leave what you can’t. John remembered in the field sometimes there were trauma cases that got by with a quick patch up, and sent on to a proper hospital. Someone else would do their best to do the healing. He just had to keep them alive until then. 

 

 _Perhaps that is all I_ _’_ _ve done for myself_ , John thought. Stopped the bleed-out, cauterized the wound. Just stabilized, if you can call it that.  Nothing else to do. He remembered a colleague, Bret, another medic.  He lost his footing when a blast came and ended up with a broken arm.  Not half an hour later, he was back with them, arm in a sling, continuing his work.  War’s still on. You got on with what has to be done.  He even joked a bit that at least he was ambidextrous.  This was more like that than John wished.  He was walking wounded, still trying to get on, but not by any means well.

 

Habits and routines made the days blend into a sameness. Each day like the last. The blare of the alarm. He’ll get up, dress by rote. Go to the hospital. The patients change, but not enough to matter. Prescription here, plaster there, occasional referral to a specialist. Nothing that takes too much effort.  Except that it all does. John does what is necessary and leaves everything else.

 

It feels less like living and more like he’s picked up a script. Now he plays civilian Dr. John Watson, who it turns out has a bit of a limp. Quiet, unassuming bloke. He speaks when spoken to, laughs on cue. Everything is fine.  Really. It’s all fine. But he is not a very good actor, these days. The soldier slips in and the laughter never reaches his eyes. He tends to avoid those that knew him well enough to notice.

 

John kept seeing him. It was less frequent now than it had been at first. He would pass someone on the street or see someone across the train. It happens to everyone when they experience loss. Completely normal, Ella assured him. Still it hurt.  It happened again today. He was getting coffee; Lord knew he hadn’t slept enough last night with the bloody nightmares. As he was queuing up, he scanned the café for an open seat and there was this man in the corner. Their eyes locked for a moment and John had been sure for just a second that it was Sherlock, before dismissing the thought. Impossible really and of course the hair was all wrong, too long and ginger. So different actually that it seemed strange the thought even occurred to him. Still, those eyes haunted him for the rest of the day.

 

Home at last, John braced himself for the trip up the stairs. Too many memories here, but he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. He couldn’t afford it on his own, but Sherlock’s rent is still being paid. Mrs. Hudson says it is Mycroft. Something about the will and a Holmes’ family trust. Apparently the rent is to be paid until John’s death. Sherlock wanted him here and that made it right somehow. If it was just Mycroft, John knew he couldn’t stand it. He wouldn’t be in that man’s debt for all the world.

 

Bloody Mycroft. John supposed he should expect no less from the man who taught Sherlock Holmes that caring is not an advantage, but to sell your own brother out, even for Queen and country, seemed cold. Even for the Ice Man. It still didn’t make sense. Why would you express constant worry for your brother, then spin his life story out piece by piece to buy cooperation from a known criminal. Let alone a mastermind like Moriarty. Hadn’t it seemed the least bit alarming that the only thing that held his interest was Sherlock? He wasn’t some cute fan in a deerstalker, begging for an autograph. Not like Moriarty just wanted a chat and a cuppa with the brilliant detective. Mycroft was many things, but he wasn’t an idiot. By all accounts he was brighter than Sherlock in his own way. So how could he think it would play out? John winced as he felt the headache begin, right behind his eyes. Always, when he tried to get in Mycroft’s head. John sighed in frustration. Easier just to say the hell with him. Smug, poncy bastard. 

 

Opening the door, John smiled in a tired way. Home, where he could drop the façade. He always has been able to be himself here, whether elated or depressed, angry or delighted, 221B always welcomed him in any state, even if Sherlock wasn’t here to deduce it. It looked much the same as it ever did, albeit a bit tidier. 

 

He dropped his jacket and keys onto the sofa and shuffled into the kitchen and began fixing tea while he mused. Waiting for the water to boil, John ran his fingers over the chemistry set.  The equipment and books might gather dust from disuse, but Mrs. Hudson, bless her, cleaned up a bit now and again, as she always did. Despite her protests of not being their housekeeper.  Of course the actual experiments had to go. What doctor in his right mind would leave body parts to mould in the fridge? John is not sure what doctor in his right mind lets his flatmate keep body parts in the fridge in the first place, so there’s that, but it doesn’t matter now. He couldn’t get rid of the equipment, though.

 

He had spent the first few days with Harry, but she couldn’t stay sober for long.  Not even for my sake, he thinks bitterly. After a tremendous row, calling each other all sorts of names, John steeled himself and went back to the flat. Mrs. Hudson had boxed all Sherlock’s things up, trying to be so helpful.

 

 _Trying to spare me pain, I know_ , John reminds himself, wishing he hadn’t snapped at her as he unboxed everything and tried to put it all back.  Not his proudest moment, actually breaking down when he could not remember where everything had been. But there is no shame in remembering, just sadness.  He needed so badly for something to be normal.  Just something that wasn’t off and unfamiliar and wrong.  After a few days, he finally did get everything back in a semblance of its usual place, and there it stayed. 

 

It made the hurt recede into a further corner of John’s mind at the very least.  Occasionally it seemed to disappear altogether, lulled by the familiarity, when his mind fooled him. Just glancing out of the corner of his eye, John could still imagine that Sherlock was here or would be soon. Perhaps it was just after a case and he’d finally gone to bed. Perhaps he got a text and ran off for a while John was at the hospital. After all, he didn’t drag John everywhere.

 

Unhealthy? Likely, but we all have to cope somehow. Worse when it came crashing back? Perhaps, but for daily living to go on much the same, to feel like the place you sleep was still in some sense home, it was worth it. 

 

John idly pulled out his phone and texted ‘Missing you-JW’.  The months passed and the phone was still connected. It might last until the contract was up. Perhaps even longer, if Mycroft had blended it in with his own accounts.  It seemed likely, as he hadn’t bothered to have it shut off yet, although it could have been a glitch on the company side of things and simply hadn’t been reassigned. Whatever the reason, it remained on and sending texts to it helped a bit. Of course the first few times had been accidental. John got involved in something and forgot just long enough to send a text. Never anything important. More like, ‘At the Tesco. Home soon.’ As soon as he hit send, it all came back. Later though, he began sending texts that Sherlock could never get. Of course there were the desolate cries of ‘Why did you leave me?’ and ‘I can’t bear this!’ but mixed in were ‘Double-homicide today.  Police are stumped-- you’d have loved it.’ And ‘String of high profile robberies. Only forgeries were taken. You’d have figured it out already.’ And late one night whilst very, very drunk, ‘I love you. Not that it matters now.’

 

Did he mean it _like that_? John felt like a git even thinking those words. It sounded childish. Too much and somehow too simple besides.

 

He didn’t think so, but honestly, he wasn’t sure anymore. So many people thought it and really, it _didn_ _’_ _t_ matter now. Certainly no one else had ever turned his world around like Sherlock. Probably no one would, for whatever that was worth. He let the thoughts drift off. Tried not to give them too much weight.

 

Mug in hand, he sat down and opened his laptop. He stared at the blank document for a few minutes. He couldn’t bring himself to write. Ella wanted him to, but it was like being back at the beginning. Before Sherlock. His last blog entry was June 16th, just a day after Sherlock jumped and hardly said anything really. Just that Sherlock was his best friend and that he would always believe in him. Didn’t exactly say that he was dead and there would be no more updates, but it was what it meant.

 

He had thought about it at first. Certainly there were cases he hadn’t written up to add. Not the unsolved ones. Not now. Even the successful cases, though, he just couldn’t. With the media tide turned as it had, John’s chest tightened and his heart raced every time he tried. At first it felt close to a panic attack, but over time he just felt hollow. He didn’t need to subject himself, or Sherlock’s memory, to people’s hatred. Those who could never understand his genius. Thrilled to see him abused and discredited. Even with the comments turned off, he just didn’t want to put anything out there. Someone would twist it. Rule it impossible. Say Sherlock made it up to solve it, like everything else. Or that John was inventing things to try to salvage his friend’s shredded image. Poor deluded John Watson. Not sure which would be worse, but neither would be bearable. 

 

He slammed the laptop shut. It was such bullshit. He couldn’t believe it, even when Sherlock wanted him to at the end. Sherlock couldn’t have possibly made it all up. Moriarty _was_ real. And if all Sherlock wanted was glory or fame, which he clearly never gave a fuck about one way or another, he still wouldn’t have had John kidnapped. _He wouldn_ _’_ _t have left me alone with that monster. And even if genius craves an audience, Sherlock had the goddamned world. Why would he need me?_ Part of him wanted to doubt, wanted to try to grasp that he had been pulled into the web of a sociopath and that it was all a lie. He just couldn’t.

 

He thought about calling Ella, but dismissed it.  What good that would do? He could scarcely speak properly even in their sessions. Ella Thompson was a fine therapist.  She was supposed to be good at her job, so maybe it would help soon. He really was trying this time. John just could never find the words. It all seemed too clinical. Every time he tried, he sounded so bloody stilted with her. Her understanding was so limited and he didn’t know how to make it all make sense. It was just one more motion to go through, but it was what he would advise any patient to do if they had experienced such loss. If they had a limp that no medical file could explain.  If they had nightmares that kept them from properly resting for days. If they described feeling this numb, this lost. That was what therapists were for, wasn’t it? Her words always felt hollow, though. “Of course you are depressed.  You’ve experienced loss.” He needed to talk about it.  To move through the grief.  Easy to say.  He wondered if she ever had to do it. The limp has returned, but what could they say about that?  She always knew it was psychosomatic. Trauma induced. Well, there had certainly been trauma.  What else would you call watching your best friend off himself? In many ways the war was easier. Death was expected there. You might not know who or when, but at least it was a war zone. Of course people died. Wasn’t London with Sherlock like their own war zone, though, if John was honest. They investigated crime scenes for Godsakes, of course there was death.  He just hadn’t expected it would be Sherlock’s.

 

But how could anyone who never knew Sherlock understand what it meant, what he did? How he was such a dick sometimes, but still so bloody amazing. John supposed if he had gone while Sherlock was still alive, Ella might understand, but there had been nothing to tell her that mattered. It wasn’t like he could reasonably explain that the happiest and most alive he ever felt was racing madly across London pursuing criminals, helping Sherlock Holmes. The danger. The sense of justice. Pride and vindication in a job well done. Not useless anymore. That was the most true, wasn’t it? Invalided home felt more like invalidated.

 

So while he went to therapy regularly, John talked more at home. It wasn’t exactly talking to himself, so much as talking as though Sherlock was still there. Comforting, but not quite as comforting as, well, he could be when he wanted. John needed someone who understood, but no one did.  Not really. How could they? So he talked more often alone than in company these days. Reminding himself occasionally that it wasn’t crazy as long as he was well aware that Sherlock couldn’t hear him. Sometimes addressing his comment to the skull, and as of yet, “Billy” had never answered. He smiled to himself, remembering how Sherlock had talked the same way to him, sometimes failing to notice or stop when John had stepped out. He might have seemed exasperated, but there was something endearing about catching Sherlock mid-sentence. It felt less like he didn’t notice the absence and more like they had become a part of one another. As if he wondered how John could not be there, beside him?  John felt like that tonight. “How aren’t you here?” he wondered aloud. He couldn’t help feeling a bit like a widow, never mind that they weren’t like that.

 

Worn out from work, from keeping up appearances, from the nightmares.  Just worn ragged and thin. John just wanted to close his eyes for a moment.  Just a moment.

 

* * *

Breathless from rushing back, John enters 221 Baker Street, concerned that no ambulance is out front.  Had he missed them?  He heads straight to Mrs. Hudson’s sitting room.  Rather than her coffee table, John sees a steel table from the morgue.  No paramedics are anywhere around, but Mrs. Hudson is lying on the table eyes wide and staring, blood still seeping through his dear old landlady’s jumper, the dark stain spreading far too fast. Through her tears, Molly manages, “You can’t help me.  You shouldn’t even be here, John. You aren’t meant to see this,” though she doesn’t even glance up.

Molly takes up her blunt-tip shears and begins to cut away Mrs. Hudson’s clothes.  Molly, still sobbing, speaks in to a small tape recorder, “Victim is… a Caucasian female, Mrs. Martha Jane Hudson, age 62.  Cause of death, appears to be Moriarty, but closer examination is necessary.”   She sets aside the recorder and picks up a scalpel and begins to make the usual Y-shaped incision before picking up the rib cutters.  Mrs. Hudson looks dead, her wide vacant stare in her ashen face, but John can’t help but notice that she is still actively bleeding.

“Stop!” he tries to scream, “What are you doing? Can’t you see she’s not dead?” but it only comes out as a high pitched whirring noise like some kind of broken machinery. Molly doesn’t even turn his way.

She is still working in the chest cavity. She examines lungs, describing the bullet hole through the right one, now deflated. She takes up the tweezers and extracts the bullet, a .40 caliber, which she duly notes.  Next, she pulls out the heart. It is still beating as she weighs it on an old-fashioned brass scale that John hadn’t noticed before.  Strange, as it was the largest thing on the counter. John peers at the scale, discovering a feather in the other side. Nonsensically, the feather weighs more, a finding which Molly dutifully records.  She replaces the heart, taking sutures and delicately piecing the arteries back together. Not standard procedure at all was the thought that crossed John’s mind, ludicrous as it was. She was re-inflating the lungs when Mrs. Hudson began to blink.

“There, now. That’s better,” Molly murmured, drying her tears and pushing the ribs back in place. “Don’t try to sit up, yet.  You aren’t all back together.  Mrs. Hudson mumbles something that John doesn’t quite catch as Molly sews her back together.

“Oh, John.  You weren’t supposed to be here,” Mrs. Hudson’s mouth is moving, but it is Sherlock’s voice. 

John woke with a start. Bloody Hell. What was that? It was dark outside. God only knew how long he’d been asleep. He shook his head, trying to clear the image of poor Mrs. Hudson. He microwaved some leftover soup and ate it over the kitchen sink, before dragging himself to bed. Obviously he needed the sleep. 

The next thing he knows, John is shuffling along at a crouch, sand shifting under his boots, med kit strapped to his back. Heart pounding, flooded with adrenaline, that means survival here.  Fight or flight perfectly functioning, speeding his limbs.  The light isn’t right. Hazy and grey, like through the fog of London on a dreary morning, but John doesn’t have time to puzzle about that now. He stops, kneeling over a fallen soldier. Checks vitals, nods sadly and moves on to the next. He drops low over the next one, shielding this potential patient from another blast.  This one moans softly and as the dust settles, John leans in to assess the damage. Thankfully the hit was to the leg. Not mortal, as long as he doesn’t bleed out. Applying pressure and bandaging him up, all the while whispering words of encouragement. Two medics run up, shifting him onto a stretcher, carrying him away.  As John continues on, checking fallen soldiers, the shifting sand beneath his feet becomes firmer, gradually changing until he is walking on the wooden floor of the field hospital. At first maintaining the hunched, crouched form like when he was in the desert, straightening up only when he reaches a patient’s bed, John continues to tend patients. Soon he isn’t wearing fatigues any longer, but scrubs and a lab coat. Smiling and joking with patients who are well enough for such things. Slowly more children and grandmothers occupy the beds and fewer soldiers. He isn’t quite sure when it stopped being the field hospital and became Barts, but he is glad to see Sarah. They grab coffee and chat for a bit between patients.

Back to work. John is checking over a patient’s file, trying to assess what he is doing here.  There is nothing wrong with this man, when the steady blip…blip…blip of the heart monitor turns into the solid tone no one wants to hear. Two nurses run in to assist John as he John shifts into action, using paddles to try to restart the heart, but to no avail. As John begins to record time of death, Mycroft Holmes walks in, clearing the room. He calmly walks to the heart monitor and taps the base with his umbrella.  “Check again, John,” he declaims in his most smug tone before turning on his heel and walking out. John calls after him, just as the beeping of the monitor returns, steady as ever.

After a quick trip to the loo and a drink of water, John tucked back in.  Sleep came more slowly this time, but eventually, he drifted off again.

 


	2. Recovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John finally hears what Sherlock was trying to tell him.

He came alert completely, heart pounding, cold sweat trickling down his back. _Did I cry out his name as I woke?_ John wondered.  _Hope I didn’t wake Mrs. Hudson this time. She does worry over me_. Quick glance at the clock.3 AM. Wired up like awakening in the field, suddenly and completely. None of the usual soft edge or bleariness. The nightmares of Sherlock’s Fall do that, just like the flashbacks to Afghanistan. But with all fear being false, or at least not relevant now, John just felt jittery. There was nothing to protect, to fight, to heal. God, no matter how he tried, he wouldn’t be able to sleep now.

Sometimes there would be a break, a blessed day or two without awakening in startled panic. Unfortunately, this week it seemed he could scarcely close his eyes without the nightmares starting up once more. To have a whole series was not unheard of, but never did him good. At least they continued to be different each time, which Ella assured John was actually a good sign. He hadn’t tried to work out why and she hadn’t elaborated.

This time it was a replay of their final conversation. Sherlock’s note. It seemed that time had slowed and John knew, absolutely _knew_ that if he hadn’t been knocked down, if he could have moved faster, Sherlock wouldn’t be dead. Impossible, really. How would that have anything to do with it?  As a doctor, John was all too aware that falls were tricky. A slip on the stairs or a tumble off a ladder could kill you instantly, but a fall off a bridge or a building didn’t always have the same effect.  Was the fall high enough to control the landing? Was impact head first, hands and knees, flat out?  What was there to break his fall?  But no matter the height or the landing, something happening several feet away could hardly change the outcome.  Still, impossible has a way of not mattering in dreams and so it was that dream consciousness he was certain there was something.  John scrubbed his hands over his eyes as if he could wipe away the images.

 He took out his gun and padded down the steps and across the flat to the kitchen. He set it on the table as he filled the kettle and set it to boil. Doubting anything would help, John still shifted things around in the cabinet until he found the battered, half-empty box of chamomile, setting it beside the mug. Supposed to be soporific, sometimes it did him some good.

Sitting down at the table, John began his personal ritual.  He stared down at the clean black lines against the wood grain. He clenched and opened his fist, a familiar, involuntary motion to dispel the tremors.  Just a gun, but intimately his. Used in action, for defense, and for protection now that he was home. Now and then, he contemplated other applications. He knows that he won’t, just as surely as he knows that he could.  It was oddly comforting to get it out now and again, just affirm the choice. He knew the distinct flavor of metal and oil. No need for that today. Just this moment to affirm that living was a choice and he would continue to make it. A calmness fell over him as he took it apart and cleaned it as efficiently and carefully as always, and put it away.  Strange that something so dark, so desperate, could usually make the nightmares quiet. At least for a time.

The jittery feeling was gone, but in its wake, a headache bloomed, as it often did.  He sat, pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. His head was splitting. He began to gently massage his neck and occipital ridge with the other hand. The kettle whistled as he switched to rubbing thumbs against his temples in slow circles. Still no good, and soon he couldn’t stand the whistling any longer. 

As John poured the water, he noticed how full the kettle felt. _Still heating enough water for both of us._ At least he’d stopped actually fixing two cups after the first few weeks. _May want a second anyway, I suppose_. He sighed, remembering.  The first time he had fixed tea for Sherlock after he was gone, he had cried.  The next few times, he had just quietly poured it in the sink.  The last time had ended with shattered crockery, tea splattering the walls.  Mrs. Hudson had come up, bless her, telling John to go take a moment and she’d tidy up. Somehow the memory of her sweet, lilting voice declaring, “Just this once, dear. I’m not your housekeeper,” made John smile in spite of himself.  He half-heartedly dunked the bag a few times before walking down the hall to the bathroom.  _God, I look tired_ , he thought as he caught a glimpse of himself in the medicine chest door.  He shook one paracetamol into his hand, but thinking better of it, added a second. _This is a two pill problem,_ he thought and a broken bark of a laugh escaped him. Fuck. He tossed them back and swallowed without water, wincing slightly at the bitterness. They should kick in soon enough.

Walking back down the hallway, his damn leg started to go again. At least he managed to brace against the wall and didn’t fall. His jaw clenched. _There is nothing wrong with it!_  John refused to use the goddamn cane in his own flat anymore. The pain was real, even if the injury wasn’t and most people would just use the cane, but he couldn’t.  Not here. It felt like a negation of everything Sherlock did. Slowly, he alternately limped and braced against the wall _. I will do this_ , his only thought now.

He finally reached the kitchen and settled at the table once more. The tea hadn’t cooled overmuch, just enough to drink. It was a bit over brewed, but the slight bitterness was actually welcome at the moment. The heat itself was soothing, if nothing else. With warmer hands, John pinched the bridge of his nose again, letting his fingers spread out from there to rub the supraorbital ridge. It usually helped more with sinus headaches, but still felt good as he waited for the drugs to take effect.

Unfortunately, his eyes slipped closed, which seemed the opposite of help, those last moments beginning their cycle of replay once more. The phone ringing, Sherlock’s usually melodious voice roughened with what on anyone else would have been panic, but surely not Sherlock.  John was stepping out of the cab.

All of it in perfect detail. It wasn’t like this every time, but this wasn’t the first time either. Always the worst, when even waking didn’t stop it. Not just memory. Memories blurred and faded, changed subtly the farther removed you were from them. Not these. No, for these moments in time, John seemed to have been given Sherlock’s nearly-perfect replay. It was photographic. _Of course not for anything I’ve studied, not even for something I enjoyed. Not for some tender moment like a first kiss or even something as banal as an amazing shag. No, just my bloody best mate’s suicide._  

It made him angry. Suddenly, blindingly angry. Sure, there was Moriarty’s game at the heart of things and Mycroft’s betrayal that made him sick, but they were the obvious villains. The rage was too big for the obvious targets. It wasn’t focused on one person or moment, directed at one decision or player at all. It seemed that everything that led to that moment, everyone involved had some sort of blame. If Lestrade hadn’t turned on Sherlock, would it have made a difference?  He was just following leads and checking all possible angles.  Ultimately, following orders. Just doing his job, sure, but it stung nonetheless to have him, of all people, doubting Sherlock. Sherlock had made his career, for Christsakes!  If John was that irate, he could imagine it affected Sherlock, too. John had hardly seen Greg since. Of course he had apologized and John had forgiven him as much as he could. It was certainly hard to put too much blame on a man who blamed himself utterly. Lestrade was broken apart over this, possibly as much as John. But they couldn’t help one another, couldn’t heal one another. Sherlock’s ghost would always be between them. Even when Lestrade’s divorce was finalized and John knew Greg was so alone, he couldn’t be the one to be there for him.  It was just too much.

John had been terribly alone, too. His own sister was the worst, though. He hadn’t forgiven Harry for failing him.  He should have expected it.  Really, how many times can someone disappoint you before that glimmer of hope dies?  You somehow expect this time will be different, nothing logical about it. After all the times her life fell to pieces, all the times he had held her hand, he had dared to hope that she could be there when he needed her.  But she hadn’t.  She couldn’t keep it together for anyone, not even for him. At least she existed as a terrible warning.  He’d have a pint now and then, but the moment he realized that he was trying to numb himself he’d poured all the whiskey down the sink.  He wouldn’t be like Harry.  Moreover, he wouldn’t become their Da. At least John was usually a jovial drunk rather than a bully, which was more than he could say for either of them.

Everyone dealt with the grief in their own way, but John ended up in solitude.  It hadn’t quite seemed like a choice, but perhaps it had been.  John didn’t really favor time with those friends and acquaintances he and Sherlock shared. Of course Mrs. Hudson checked in on him, bless her, and John never minded her.  Molly had tried, at first, but it seemed she could barely look at him.  Perhaps she expected more from him.  He was a doctor, after all. _How could I, who knew him best, have never seen this coming? I should have known. He was clearly unstable, reckless. All I could see was Sherlock always headed into_ _danger, rather than running from it or calling for backup. His instability never seemed likely to turn in on himself._

How could he have done this? Anger at Sherlock had been brewing for some time, simmering below the surface of the shock and despair. _He always thought he was ten steps ahead of everyone. He usually was. Until the end._ Somehow, it had to have been Moriarty, didn’t it? _I didn’t see anyone with him, but God knows there is more than one way to push._    Donovan, Anderson, and God knew how many people over the years whose taunting over the years hadn’t helped, but Sherlock had always seemed above it all. How could he of all people have done this? _You can hardly expect a man so in love with himself to take his life._ Even in rare moments when John could see he was hurt by something, it seemed to only redouble his efforts to be clever, brilliant, let everyone know they were idiots. And just like that, it would be all right again.

So this, defeat, it just wasn’t right. Sherlock never gave up. He wasn’t like that. And that was the thought that did it, drained the anger away, because Sherlock _wasn’t_ like that. Not at all.  

_I can almost hear you, right next to me. Not the calm, bored tone you used when you were waiting for me to catch up, but contemptuous. An angry insistent hiss, all fury through closed teeth, “You know my methods. Apply them!” as though you’ve had to repeat yourself and not just once. Like this has been a mantra since your death and I haven’t been listening. Everyone knows how you hate repeating yourself._

His methods. John needed to observe, not see. Not just endure it. Not watch it unfold. John needed to go beyond seeing, into that place Sherlock lived.  Could he deduce what happened, even after this long?

Hovering on the edge of John’s consciousness, there was something Sherlock had said, something in that terrible row when Mrs. Hudson was supposedly shot. What was it? Ah, there it is, “Alone is what I have. Alone protects me.”  _No. Friends protect people_ , John had replied, infuriated that he wasn’t going to come. What if Sherlock didn’t mean feelings, which he rarely acknowledged, at least certainly didn’t discuss… what if he really meant that he needed to be alone, for protection?

 _God, what if that damned fake-out of a shooting wasn’t even part of Moriarty’s plan, but Sherlock’s? What if it was to separate us. Not to get me out of Moriarty’s way while getting Sherlock, but so I would be further away from what Sherlock planned._ _Even he wouldn’t know how long that would delay me for sure. What if I wasn’t even supposed to make it back in time?_

 _Is this what actually cracking up feels like?_ Everything has another meaning?  Still, it isn’t exactly hearing messages from aliens or thinking the government is sending secret codes in the morning paper.  Sherlock lived for codes and puzzles, clues and mysteries. Is it that farfetched to think that perhaps he left one behind? Other people were just idiots and while he called John that a fair amount, he was always trying to bring John up to his level, constantly challenged his mind, his powers of reasoning. Prodded again and again for John to look at things like he did, to see and more to catalogue, compare. To observe. As though he really expected that someday, John would be able to do it. Perhaps, in this, he had hoped beyond hope that John would eventually be able to follow the evidence. Not right away, of course.

Was he volatile?  Certainly.  Unstable?  Perhaps, but not like this.  It wouldn’t be himself. He would be more likely to kill someone else.  Not like Donovan thought, out of malice or sheer boredom.  There would be good reason, but he wouldn’t flinch if it was necessary. _I know a few things beyond a shadow of a doubt.  He wouldn’t just leave, he wouldn’t kill himself and he was the most clever man I have ever known._

Like Sherlock talking to all the idiots of the world, John could hear him so clearly saying, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable must be the truth.”  Well, no one can eliminate _all_ the factors, but if John started from the premises that he is not a nutter, Sherlock wasn’t either and certainly wouldn’t off himself, what was left? 

John felt something click into place. It was as though he was looking through a microscope set for someone else, all blurry and off-centre and he had just adjusted the focus. Everything started to unfold again, like in the dreams, only this time, it made more sense. New meanings presenting themselves so immediate and irrepressible that it was hard to imagine not seeing them before. 

 _Sherlock called me.  He called on his own phone._ Did he want the call traced or overheard? Was that the point of this whole bloody exercise? John took a sip of his tea and a steadying breath as he allowed the memory to wash over him.

John remembered asking Sherlock if he was ok, although it was obvious that he wasn’t.  _I could hear it in his voice as clear as day. He sounded frantic when he told me to walk away, utterly desperate to get me to leave._ Clearly he hadn’t expected John to be back in time.  When he resigned himself to the change, he told John to look up, that he was on the roof. The horror of seeing him so close to the edge was still palpable and John’s heart began to race again just remembering.  _What the hell had Sherlock doing up there?_ John had thought at the time, but now it was coupled with _If it wasn’t really to kill himself, what was he doing?_

“I ... I ... I can’t come down, so we’ll ... we’ll just have to do it like this.” Christ, he sounded terrified.  Had he ever heard Sherlock sound like that? He was so undone he was stuttering.  
John’s heart beat ever faster as he managed to ask, “What’s wrong?” in memory, unaware that he whispered it out loud now as well.

Sherlock sounded a little more together when he spoke again, “An apology. It’s all true.” Did Sherlock ever apologize? Not for the poisonous experiments, the body parts in the kitchen for Gods sakes. In his own way, he did apologize for Baskerville, but it didn’t feel the same. And he did actually say “I’m sorry” to Molly Hooper at the Christmas party. _Even asked forgiveness if I recall, but still it was so rare and I don’t think I’ve ever heard him say ‘apology’ before.  Certainly not without a sneer._

After he said he invented Moriarty, he turned around. Something was there behind him. Someone? He wasn’t alone up there, was he? Moriarty or one of his men was there with him.

“The newspapers were right all along,” A _ll along?_ That was what he said. _They had only turned on him at the last moment, after the Moriarty trial. So if they were right_ all _along, he wasn’t a fake. He didn’t invent anything, but needed me to try to believe in this moment that he did. Why?_

Sherlock actually said he was a fake then, didn’t he?  His voice broke on the word.  He amended it, “I want you to **_tell_** everyone I created Moriarty for my own purposes.” John’s mind was racing. _Not I want you to know I was a fake. Basically pleading that I tell people that ridiculous Richard Brook story. To Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade, the people close to us._

 Sherlock was actually crying. John had been much too far away to see tears, but could hear it in his voice. Sure, John had seen him do that for a case. When he needed to be, Sherlock could be charming or tearful, raging or overwhelmingly cheery. He snapped right out of it when it was no longer necessary. _But never with me._ _He didn’t act with me._ Still, John had never seen him _really_ cry. Not even for Irene. Had he been actually crying or acting? Was it for someone else’s benefit or was he genuinely moved? John wanted to try to puzzle that out longer, but there was no time, the moments still playing in his head.

John remembered feeling desperate and confused, hoping to a God he wasn’t sure he believed in that this was not going where it seemed. But all he had said was, “Okay, shut up, Sherlock, shut up. The first time we met ... the _first time we met_ , you knew all about my sister, right?” 

“Nobody could be that clever,” Sherlock had stated with such flat finality. Dread that had been building coalesced in the pit of John’s stomach.

“ _You_ could,” he answered, not missing a beat. He believed it with all his heart, then and now. 

God, why had Sherlock needed him to hear these things? They weren’t true. Sherlock had tried to make it seem like John was starting to buy Richard Brook’s story about actors and all, but he never had done.  His response still rang true.  _Nobody could pretend to be such an annoying dick all the time._ No one could research or plant everything.  It was inconceivable. It made far more sense that Sherlock was actually able to deduce things from the evidence than it did that it was some kind of elaborate hoax. How could he fake deducing things about random people he encountered? Everyone would have to be an actor. And why? What possible good could that have done?

“I researched you,” Sherlock had said. While John was the one that brought it up, only he and Sherlock knew that he had been wrong in that first deduction. Mostly spot-on and it impressed the hell out of John, but Harry was his sister, not his brother.  John puzzled over it now, allowing himself to really consider in a way he hadn’t at the time. _If he researched everything about me to impress me, if that was true, he would not then have made any mistakes._ No research, then, just deduction as has always been the case. Deduction led him to make a mistake, so rarely, but had in that case. Like John having a sister, not a brother.  Somehow this was important.  A mistake, then.  A mistake was made that led him here, too.  This was some kind of backup plan and he was genuinely sorry. Sorry enough to reference one of his few actual mistakes.

“It’s a trick.  A magic trick”. When that banker had called it a trick, Sherlock was incensed. He was adamant then that it wasn’t a trick.  He had seemed so angry at the word. It sounded dismissive, and belittled the skill that Sherlock had honed. Moreover there was no lie to it, like a magician’s ruses, just logical conclusions, if you were keen enough to see the details. Why had Sherlock used that word here, then? _Was he hoping I would remember that day? Did he want me to pull apart the fiction?_ _So, what did he mean, “It’s a trick”? Not deduction, not everything we have seen and done together, but only this. This moment, this conversation._

John’s mind was reeling. _His fall too? How could that be? I saw him in mid air. How can you fake that?_ Like any good magician, there must have been a misdirect. _What didn’t I see?  Bloody brilliant, I’m sure._

“Keep your eyes on me”, he had said. Was that essential? “Please, will you do this for me?” _Please.  When did he ever ask, nearly beg?_   He ordered and coerced, certainly, but asking? It was serious, then. What didn’t he want John to see? _He had made me change my location, made me stand exactly in one spot._ There had to be a reason. There always was.

All the talk of leaving a note and John felt his stomach drop.  This was it, the worst he had feared since the call began.

“Goodbye, John.” Those two simple words still seemed to stab him in the gut. Sherlock dropped the phone and in John’s mind there was a giant reverberating thud. Certainly no sound a phone would make and nothing he had heard from that distance, but there it was. He was on his feet before he even noticed.

 _The phone._ There must be something on the phone. He ran to the closet, not even realizing that is leg didn’t bother him at all. The dry cleaned coat hung in the closet. The only thing John had kept out was the blue scarf, which he wore now and again. But he couldn’t get rid of these things. Someday maybe, he had thought.

Standing on tiptoe, he was just able to reach a neat box on the top shelf. Personal Effects. Somewhere along the line, Sherlock Holmes had declared John Watson to be treated as next of kin, not Mycroft. How Mycroft felt about that, John wondered briefly, but didn’t really care.  It had left him with this box, which he couldn’t bring himself to open. What good would it do to look at wallet and keys and phone that had belonged to his friend? He couldn’t get rid of them, though. _Sentiment_ , he thought wryly, remembering Sherlock’s deduction from what felt like a lifetime ago. How Sherlock had laughed at people’s ideas of sentiment, but he knew them; he used them.

John unsealed the box and took out the phone. He smiled, thinking “If she'd left _him_ , he would've kept it. People do. Sentiment.” Of course Sherlock would know that John would keep the phone.

It would need charging. Where the bloody hell would Sherlock put his charger? He never charged it in the living room or kitchen. John hadn’t spent much time in Sherlock’s room, but he hadn’t cleaned it out either, save for discarding any musty, moldering experiments like the rest of the house. Closing his eyes, John pictured coming in to ask Sherlock something. His phone had been charging on the bedside table, so John checked the drawers. Sure enough, the charger was there. _Apparently learned something from him after all._ John left the phone to charge, and lay down on Sherlock’s bed.  His throat closed and for a moment it felt like he couldn’t breathe. Disoriented, as Sherlock had felt with the HOUND, to think that what he had seen wasn’t reality.

 _Could he really still be alive?_ John’s chest was tight and he finally gave in, curling onto his side.  He made no sound, as the pillow under his cheek turned damp.

He was not even aware of falling asleep, but it was sweet and peaceful and utterly dreamless. When he woke it was rather late in the morning and he finally felt rested. The phone by the bedside was charged. John unplugged it and held it wonderingly.  What he was even looking for, he didn’t know, but he was so sure last night that there would be something.  It was worth a try.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my brilliant beta, mistresskikimistresskikisshiphassailed, who always makes my writing better and who cheer-leads along the way.


	3. Sentiment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock must learn to cope with his choices, too.

Sherlock stood atop St. Bart’s. Eyes watering, nose running, heart slowing. All perfectly normal for rhododendron poison.  

 

Nothing in any of his research had turned up anything about a feeling like your chest caving inwards, like there was suddenly a great chasm where your heart ought to be. Foolish metaphor, as he could still feel his heart beating, if more faintly.

 

Love, loss. Betraying everything that had ever meant anything to him. Mycroft  was right. How he hated being wrong, but it stung much more when Mycroft was right.  He could hear it in John’s voice as he started to realize what was going on, at least what he was supposed to believe. _What I need him to believe._  He sounded broken already.

 

There is nothing I can do. To protect his body from bullets, I need to break his heart.   

 

_Unravel the mystery, solve the puzzle. The faster you solve it, the more brilliant you are. Aren’t I clever? If there are people in danger, letting yourself feel for them only slows you down, muddles your mind with panic and thoughts of ‘what if …’ when you could be clearly connecting the facts.  The greater good is more important than some small harm._

 

The constant forces which drive him are derailed for a moment as he dwells on that feeling.

 

This doesn’t feel small.  It feels like everything.

 

Surely John will hear the conversation with Moriarty. That was the point.The video will only be of the inside of his pocket, but the voices should be clear enough. He tested that. He should have told Molly to make sure they found it, that they listened. Make sure that John could piece it together. That _this_ is his note.

 

There hadn’t been time. Never enough time. He had been so hopeful that it wouldn’t come to this.   _Hopeful?_ Things generally were or weren’t. What use was hope? Somehow he hadn’t been able to stop it from creeping in this time, for all the good it did.

 

He steeled himself. _There is no other way._  Sherlock let go of the phone and jumped.

 

\-----

As Sherlock had laid out his plan,Mycroft frowned slightly as he tried to reason a way to discourage this madness.  

 

“This will break him,” he said at last.

 

Sherlock’s eyes widened in genuine surprise. “He survived war.  I am reasonably confident he can handle the loss of one eccentric flatmate. Besides, it is only a failsafe.  It is our plan of last resort. It should not come to that”.

 

The words haunted him now. He truly hadn’t known how affected John would be. But he was a soldier.  He would work through it, wouldn’t he?

 

Sherlock didn’t do sentiment. John was the one who let himself be swayed by emotions, not him. When did sentiment haunt him? That was John’s area.

 

So of course, Sherlock was finding it more distressing how he was coping. Sherlock didn’t pine for anyone. He didn’t give his baser instincts any room to thrive, so why did everything feel so incomplete?  Why was he so concerned how John was getting on and so incensed when, finally, John was starting to date again? Didn’t he do all of this so that John could live, could be happy?

 

_I’ve taken to drinking your favorite tea in the evenings, he thought. Unhindered even by the fact that Mycroft sent me off with it. It doesn’t taste like it did when you made it, which sounds ridiculous, but it is true.  Maybe I overbrew it.  Perhaps the proportion of milk to tea is off.  It would be sentiment to think it had to do with your hands or the fact that no one had actually bothered to make me tea since Nanny when I was a child._

 

He sighed. He couldn’t get close enough himself, but he needed to know that John was fine and more than a little frustrated with himself for needing it.

 

However, his last conversation with Mycroft had been no more useful.

 

“No, Sherlock,” Mycroft said, huffing out his breath in an exasperated sigh. “I can’t go check on John. The surveillance ordered on you was never rescinded. Cameras are still in place. He is still breathing. He eats, he sleeps; he goes to work. What else do you need to know?”

 

“That doesn’t tell me how he is. Just talk to him.”

 

“No,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument, not that such things had ever stopped Sherlock.

 

He nearly pouted, often reverting to a petulant child when he spoke with Mycroft. “Why not? I know you run the world, but are you really so busy you can’t have a cup of tea? He might even have cake.”

 

“Sherlock,” Mycroft began, ignoring the taunt. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, “I tried.”

 

Mycroft managed to look both resigned and a bit sad. Clearly he had met with utter failure.  If it was just John who had kicked him out or refused to see him, he would have just said so. So what, then?

 

> Mycroft let the memory of that unhappy day wash over him, remembering the familiar click behind him as the gun was cocked.  “If you so much as knock on that door, I swear I will shoot you myself.”
> 
>  
> 
> “Mrs. Hudson?” he had asked, unable to keep the incredulity from his voice as he turned to face her.
> 
>  
> 
> “Mycroft Holmes, you have done quite enough for the boys of 221B and I promise, I will not let you hurt John again.  You may pay the rent, but unless John invites you himself, you may not set foot here."
> 
>  
> 
> Tapping his umbrella impatiently, he nodded curtly and walked down the stairs and back out onto the street without so much as another word.
> 
>  
> 
> His eyes raised to the heavens and his very sigh seemed to say, “You see, caring is not an advantage”.

  
When he opened his eyes, Mycroft sighed, “It seems that I am entirely unwelcome at 221 Baker Street.


End file.
